Lethal Redemption

by April Hunt

  There was a radio but no one had turned it on and she wasn’t ballsy enough to reach out and start fiddling with it. She didn’t know the local radio stations anyway since she and David had alternated playlists on their phones for their road trip. David and Atlas had been much better driving companions.

  But that adventure was over. In a whole lot of ways, most likely.

  She tried communicating with her current travel companions again. Simple question. Perfectly reasonable. “Which base are we headed to?”

  Zilch.

  In the back, Sergeant Zuccolin might have shifted in his seat a bit. Maybe.

  There was an awful cold creeping across her skin and through her insides as the situation forced introspection. She probably wasn’t wanted back at Hope’s Crossing Kennels either. Maybe David was moving back into his cabin at that very moment.

  It might be a while before she could work up the courage to call him. Try to explain. He might not even take her call. And if he didn’t, would an e-mail be opened or immediately deleted? What about a text?

  There were so many ways for her to reach out to him and he could ignore each and every one of them.

  There was no telling how long she’d manage to stay attached to Atlas once they got to whatever military base they were heading to. She’d most definitely be going through some challenging conversations. Ideally, she wouldn’t have to reach out to her stepfather directly to keep herself a part of the project. Maybe she could apply what she’d learned from working with David, Brandon, and Alex to her approach for reasoning with the military men she’d be encountering once they reached their destination. Get started on a more positive note with a better impression.

  Sergeant Zuccolin had most definitely formed an opinion of her already. It might be good, but probably the best she could hope for was neutral. Possibly bad. He’d been a direct witness to the surprise she’d sprung on David and it hadn’t been a nice one.

  Betrayal came to mind. Stabbed in the back might be a good way to describe it, too. David had looked like he’d been smacked.

  She owed David an apology no matter what. It hadn’t been something she’d set out to do to him, but she should’ve talked to him about it sometime earlier. The unsettling feeling had snuck up on her and she truly hadn’t recognized it as keeping a secret from him until the moment she told him. Maybe he’d understand. Things had happened so quickly, she’d spent very little time thinking about any role her stepfather played in all of this or why he might want reports on Atlas.

  Stupid.

  But it was the truth. And if there was anything David valued beyond excuses and apologies, it was honesty. Simple, bare, sometimes brutal. He gave it and appreciated it in return. She should tell him. Whether he believed her or not was up to him but at least she could give it to him to do with as he chose.

  The scenery was passing by as a blur outside the window. She barely took notice. They’d be getting on Interstate 95 soon if they took a similar route to the one David had on their road trip. At least, if she remembered it correctly. If this was a long ride, she was likely to lose her mind wondering about what she should do. To be honest, there was no time like the present. Later she might be too busy to keep her thoughts clear and it’d also be too easy to push it off repeatedly until she never reached out to him. Now was better.

  She took out her smartphone and swiped the screen to unlock it. Tapping the message icon, she started to text David.

  “Time to end this farce.” Sergeant Zuccolin’s hand shot over her shoulder and grabbed her phone out of her hands.

  “Hey!”

  She didn’t have time for more as the sergeant grabbed for her hands, starting to wrap duct tape around her wrists.

  Panic blinded her and she thrashed.

  “Fuck!” The SUV swerved as her flailing hands contacted with the man’s shoulder. The hell was his name? She should know both of their names so she could report this.

  If she survived.

  Atlas was barking and growling. The metal crate crashed in the back.

  Her brain had gone into overdrive as she struggled against the sergeant. He was too strong, though. In seconds, he’d captured her hands and wrapped the duct tape around her wrists. Once. Twice.

  Metal screeched and clanged. The sergeant shouted as Atlas came flying into the back seat.

  “Shit! How did he get loose?” The enlisted man started to pull over.

  “No!” Sergeant Zuccolin shouted even as he struggled with Atlas. “Keep driving, you idiot. I’ve got this.”

  Not likely. Another minute and Atlas was going to get through the sergeant’s defense with a kill bite. It would be bad. Atlas killing a US soldier would be bad. He wasn’t on duty. He could be put down.

  And he was doing it for her.

  She needed to get him out—safe, away.

  Desperation pushed Lyn to wrench the door handle. The door opened and the ground shot by as they started to accelerate again. Quick. Had to be quicker. She jammed her foot against the door to keep it open as wide as she could.

  “Shut that door!” the driver shouted.

  She ignored him. “Atlas! Hier!”

  Atlas left off the sergeant in the back and jumped into the front seat, into her lap.

  “No you don’t!” The sergeant grabbed her by the shoulder, his forearms bloody and ripped up from fending off Atlas.

  Not what she had in mind anyway. “Atlas! Over! Over! Zoek David!”

  Atlas whined but obeyed. He launched out of the SUV, clearing the dangerous pavement to hit and roll in the grass past the road’s edge. A normal dog might’ve been hurt, but Atlas had jumped out of planes and helicopters in his career. She’d had no doubts he could make the jump and get to David.

  The sergeant yanked her shoulder painfully and she let her leg off the door. It slammed shut and she desperately searched for Atlas in the rearview mirror.

  Her heart leaped when she saw his rapidly shrinking form get to its feet.

  The vehicle slowed. “Do we go back for the fucker?”

  “We got gloves? Any gear to keep him from ripping us up?” The sound of rummaging came from the back of the car.

  “No sir.”

  “Bitch doesn’t have any in her crap either.” Sergeant Zuccolin let out a long string of curses. “No. We’ll never catch the bastard out in the open like this and even if we did he’d rip chunks out of our hides. Let him disappear. Long as he’s not with anyone who can connect him to us, he should just end up in a shelter. He’s been erased from the system so they’ll come up with jack if they scan for his chip and that bastard will scare any shelter into destroying him instead of holding on to him for adoption.”

  Never. Lyn was sure Atlas had understood her. She’d told him to jump, to track David. Atlas hadn’t ever misunderstood her since the day they’d met. He’d have understood her this time.

  “You sure? Orders were to secure the dog.”

  Zuccolin paused. “Could use the girl to tempt him back.”

  Lyn kept her expression as blank as she could. She didn’t think Atlas would come back if she didn’t call him. But if they got ahead of him, into his line of sight, and tried to do something to her…she wasn’t sure what decision Atlas would make.

  “Fuck that. Dragging her out to bait the dog would take too long, catch too much attention and we’d still have to restrain him.” Obviously Zuccolin didn’t want another encounter with Atlas any time soon. “I’m going to need stitches everywhere. Goddamned lucky he didn’t break my forearm. Call Evans and have him intercept in case the mutt makes it back to those kennels.”

  So many people involved. David needed to know. Atlas would get to him and then David would know something was wrong. She twisted her wrists, trying to work at the duct tape around her wrists.

  Pain exploded on the left side of her head, blinding her. As she sucked in air, her vision cleared slowly.

  “The fuck did you think you were doing, bitch? Think I didn’t see you? Something must
’ve tipped you off.” Sergeant Zuccolin was screaming. “Did you think you could message your boyfriend? Jump out of the car? We’d have run you down in minutes. Around here, by the time anyone called that in—if they saw it at all—we’d have been long gone. And trust me, it’s no issue ditching this vehicle.”

  Lyn swallowed hard against the fear churning in her stomach. Bad, this was so incredibly bad. She’d figured she couldn’t get away. But Atlas? He was fast, too fast for them to go after even in a car. He’d find his way back to the kennels and to David. He would.

  “What did you say to the mutt?” Obviously her new favorite sergeant wasn’t an actual dog handler. “Waste of time. You’re not military and not his real handler. Soon as he gets clear he’s going to go do whatever the hell he damned well pleases. This isn’t the movies. He’s not fucking going to go find help.”

  Yes, he was.

  Though he wasn’t a Collie with a little boy for a best friend; he was a Belgian Malinois and one of the US military’s best. He’d track the man she’d named because Atlas knew him, trained with him, knew she’d worked with him. Atlas would track his way back to him and bring David back to her.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cruz tossed the hose to the side and stomped over to the spigot to cut the flow of water. He should’ve brought the damned thing with him, but instead he let the metal nozzle drag across the concrete floor of the kennels screeching and setting his teeth on edge.

  Great. He was making his own temper worse. Next thing, he’d head into Philly and look for a good, wholesome brawl.

  Because that would be such an incredibly constructive use of his time.

  Cleaning out Atlas’s kennel was supposed to have been constructive, actually. It only made him miss the big dog, and by association, the woman who’d helped work with him.

  It was easier to focus on the dog.

  Cruz had to admit Atlas had been one in a million. An optimal combination of the kind of intelligence, drive—and yes, aggression—a trainer looked for in a military working dog intended to support special forces units in the worst hellholes humankind could create.

  There’d been a quiet air about Atlas that demanded respect. His pining for Calhoun had been a final expression of a kind of loyalty rarely found anywhere, in man or beast. It’d been honorable, simple in its expression and enough to tug at the toughest heart strings. And it’d taken a wisp of a blonde with a heart just as big as Atlas’s to bring him out of it.

  Lyn had coaxed Atlas—and Cruz, too—to live again. Not merely exist.

  Maybe Cruz had been mourning the loss of a good friend, but he hadn’t been struck as hard as Atlas. Nothing so noble. Because he’d never let anyone in that way. He’d been coasting along, trying to find a place to fit in again. Lyn had caught him up with her conviction and her good intentions and wound Cruz around her finger every bit as much as Atlas.

  And now they were both gone.

  Finally finished pulling in the hose and looping it on its hook, Cruz left Atlas’s empty kennel to dry and went into the shed where they kept grooming tools and the various dogs’ gear. Lyn hadn’t taken Atlas’s gear. But then, they hadn’t practiced much with it in their training sessions to date. Most of what they’d covered had been leash work. Cruz had been planning to take the lead with Atlas more before getting Atlas into his harness for some of the more specialized training.

  Might be just as well. Who knew what Lyn would’ve done with the knowledge? Whatever information she’d been passing along all this time had to have been fragmented. Cruz cursed himself for sharing anything with her at all.

  He picked up the harness, working over the chest strap and other parts, searching by feel for something out of place. He’d done it a hundred times before and after they’d found the micro SD card under Atlas’s skin. Too obvious for Calhoun to have hidden something in Atlas’s gear and others must’ve searched the same way. But until the bigger video finished going through Cruz’s decryption program, there was nothing else to go on.

  Harris had ended up being a dead end, confirming what Cruz already knew but providing no further leads. The other man was probably subject to dangerous scrutiny for his trouble, too. A pang of guilt hit Cruz at the thought. The man did have a family—one that wanted him—and he seemed to be a genuinely decent guy.

  Doing the right thing wasn’t as straightforward as it’d seemed before going down there.

  Nothing was, actually. And it’d started getting cloudy from the minute Lyn walked onto the kennel property. He should’ve dug further into her story when she’d first shown up. Should’ve followed up with Beckhorn to find out who had approved of her assignment to a military project. Hell, he should’ve paid closer attention. Because she’d played him and he had only himself to blame. Idiot. Jackass. Stupid. A few of the possible ways he could describe himself at the moment.

  He’d fallen hard for Evelyn Jones and all along, she’d been reporting back to Daddy on his progress with Atlas. He didn’t know which hit his pride worse: that he hadn’t even suspected her or that it’d always been about the dog.

  Not fair to Atlas. Everything came back to him and none of it was his fault. Atlas was the catalyst in all of this, in so many ways it made Cruz’s head hurt.

  Cruz placed Atlas’s harness back in its storage crate. He’d pack it up for shipment tomorrow. Today, he didn’t have it in him. He needed to get outside and do something more constructive.

  Rojas was outside, working with one of the big German shepherds they’d rescued recently from a shelter. Three of them had been abandoned after their wealthy owners decided to divorce and leave, too concerned with their own affairs to worry about the futures of the very expensive dogs they’d ditched. Purebred, none of them older than six months, and all of them solid with basic obedience and the beginning of Schutzhund training in them. Not a one of them socialized for human interaction, unless you counted chasing intruders off private property.

  The shelter hadn’t had the resources to rehabilitate the dogs for normal family homes. The aggression they were already showing, their training, and lack of socialization resulted in the shelter labeling them unadoptable. If Rojas hadn’t pulled them, they’d have been destroyed. Instead, he was working to see if they could be directed to a better life.

  Cruz came to a stop and watched the dog watch him. Intelligence there, and suspicion. “How’s it going with this new batch?”

  “Promising.” Rojas had a good hold on the leash, relaxed but ready to get control if the big GSD lunged unexpectedly. “This guy definitely has potential but he’s got trust issues.”

  “I can see that.” Cruz noted the way the dog let loose a whisper of a growl as he took a step closer.

  “Fooey.” Rojas gave the correction and deliberately continued to talk with Cruz in a pleasant tone. “These boys were all trained in German.”

  Point was to demonstrate to the dog that Rojas would indicate when aggressive behavior was okay and when it was not. Trick was a dog had to trust his handler to let him know. This one, not so big on the faith yet.

  “Huh.” Cruz kept his posture loose and nonthreatening, his gaze locked with Alex’s. “Not unusual for guard dogs. Track down the breeder yet?”

  “Sent them an e-mail. They may not have the resources to place these guys, as old as they are.” Rojas shook his head. “But any breeder worth anything is going to want to know where their dogs went.”

  And if they didn’t care, Hope’s Crossing Kennels would take note of it, too. They worked with breeders across the country to get the best dogs to train for military, police work, and rescue. No way did they want to support a breeder who didn’t care about where their dogs went. Said a lot about those sorts of establishments and none of it good.

  “Any of the three likely for multi-purpose work?” Cruz figured this particular dog wasn’t likely. Not yet. Maybe after a couple weeks’ rehabilitation.

  There he went thinking with Lyn’s line of thought.

  Rojas sh
rugged. “Maybe one of the other two. This guy’s got a chip on his shoulder. I’m trying to work through it but he responds to Boom better than me.”

  Cruz raised his eyebrows. “Is it a gender thing?”

  “Maybe.” Rojas scowled. “But he’s too rough. Nipped at her hair and ears, shoved her around a little. She can hold her own most times but he’s got to learn better manners across the board.”

  “Ah.” Cruz paused. “Maybe I’ll start an assessment on one of the other two.”

  “Sure. Check them out. I’m figuring they’d be solid for police work but one of them might have the knack for multi-purpose.” Rojas led the GSD away. The big dog kept craning his neck to keep Cruz in his line of sight for as long as possible. Definitely not looking to Rojas as a handler yet.

  Atlas had begun to look to Cruz. Definitely looked to Lyn. It’d been an important step in his retraining. A dog needed to look at his handler to receive a command. But more than the literal meaning, a dog well-bonded to his or her handler was aware of the human on multiple levels. It was the establishment of a strong rapport that made a team effective.

  If he wanted to poke at a sore spot some more, he could admit it’d been Atlas’s willingness to acknowledge Lyn—trust her—that’d made Cruz relax. In Cruz’s experience, dogs had better judgment than humans when it came to character.

  Made it doubly shitty the way she’d betrayed them both. Now she was riding along with Atlas back to a military base to continue preaching her rehabilitation philosophy to someone who might not give her two seconds’ notice. It’d serve her right, but it wouldn’t be in Atlas’s best interest.

  He needed to stop thinking about Lyn. He still had to track down the people responsible for Calhoun’s death and see to it they paid for what they’d done in the way it’d hurt them most.